


Black and White

by 23_5



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: A whole lot of angst, Angst, F/F, Post 3x10, That's it, and nothing else
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-02
Updated: 2015-08-02
Packaged: 2018-04-12 15:52:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4485579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/23_5/pseuds/23_5
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cosima visits Delphine's apartment after she hears about the shooting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Black and White

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first time I've ever shared any of my writing and it's also a bit of a different style for me, so feel free to let me know what you think! Have fun with that angst guys....

Missing. 

No sign of her.

No answer on her phone.

Cosima felt hollow inside. Like the pumpkins they had carved out last Halloween. Everything moved in a daze, as if she was watching the world through fogged glass. Her limbs moved before she could register what she wanted them to do. 

She had to find Delphine. If nothing else happened, she had to find her. 

Eyes burned from a mixture of tears and biting winter wind. Legs first refused to move then couldn’t do anything but run. Muscles burning and itching, lungs starved and gasping, Cosima’s weight alone pushed the door to the apartment building open. 

She didn’t register a confused doorman trying to stop her. If she had, perhaps she would have realized that it wasn’t her apartment building her legs had dragged her to.

Footsteps echoed deafeningly loud in the abandoned stairwell. Smashing off the walls and back into ears, faster and faster as feet pounded into the painted concrete. 

Breaths, heavy and labored and burning, were harder and harder to find but more and more necessary. 

Vision blurred from unshed tears and dancing black spots alike. They taunted Cosima as she pushed forward, neglecting her body’s pleas for rest, for air, for security.

She didn’t stop until she reached the apartment. Even then she didn’t stop, she collapsed. She fell into the door, knees buckling and hands shaking. The achingly familiar stab of pins and needles crawling up from her fingertips and slithering up from her toes, meeting in the contorted remains of her stomach.

How long did she stay there, laying against the door, fingers clawing at the black paint? How long did it take for the cold, empty numbness to be replaced with the smallest spark of courage? 

It must have been forever before that spark pushed Cosima up. Unsteady legs fumbled and shaking breaths deepened. Trembling fingers pushed a silver key into the lock, praying for the door to open. 

It did. 

The image she was greeted with made her stomach clench and her breath disappear. But really, what should she have expected? 

The apartment was clinical, unlived in. The opposite of Cosima’s in every way. The furniture was minimalistic, the walls undecorated. Not a single dish or pillow was out of place. 

Did anyone even live here anymore? 

Cosima’s fingertips ghosted along the armrest of the couch. She had sat in this very spot once, drinking wine with an unpronounceable name and joking about the validity of French stereotypes. Had it been so long ago? Had so much changed since then? 

There was physical pain in her heart when she thought of how Delphine must have lived since returning from Germany. The whole place was cold, devoid of any homely touches. 

Cosima squeezed her eyes shut, unable to stop tears from slipping out. It was her fault that Delphine done this to herself. It was her fault that Delphine had shut off, ignored her emotions, pretended like she didn’t need a proper home to return to at night. She had done it all to protect Cosima and her sisters. 

And the realization hurt like hell. 

Cosima moved, slowly and painfully, from the sparse living room past the equally bare bathroom. It was decorated in black and white. Just like everything else. No color, no inbetween; one or the other. 

White as a hospital or black as a hearse. 

The door to the bedroom loomed like death itself. Cosima felt her body simultaneously burn with self-hatred and freeze in sorrow. Would this room be the same as all the rest? Last time she had stumbled through this doorway, the sanctuary beyond had been decorated in shades of Delphine’s favorite blue: light and comforting, like the sky on a perfect afternoon. What would greet her now?

One fist pressed to her mouth while the other subconsciously drifted its way up to rest over her heart. Maybe the feeble attempt would hold it together, keep the muscle from tearing itself apart once more.

Goosebumps erupted on her skin as Cosima pushed down the door handle. The door moved open horribly, torturously slowly. Feet shuffled forward against her will.

The bed was impeccably made, white sheets and black pillows perfectly in line. Not a garment on the floor, not a wrinkle in the closet. All of those flawlessly pressed suits of armor hung in a row, Delphine’s old wardrobe pushed to the back and hidden from the world: an identity that had been shed but not quite forgotten. 

It wasn’t until Cosima stepped further in and saw the nightstand (the one that used to hold that stupid little cactus she’d knocked over so many times) that she felt the world truly crash around her. She hadn’t thought her heart could break any further, but she had been wrong - unbearably so. 

Alone on the nightstand, the only decoration in the room – in the whole apartment – sat a framed photograph of her and Delphine. 

For a second time, the air in the room seemed to vanish as her heart twisted and knotted. It had been taken so long ago – well, what felt like so long ago. They had gone to an open-air market and Cosima had managed to get an elderly couple to snap some pictures of her and Delphine grinning like idiots, goofy laughs plastered on their faces because Cosima’s ice cream had suddenly started to melt onto her hand right before the shudder clicked.

Gone were the slow, tentative movements, Cosima reached out for the frame and clutched it like a lifeline. Maybe if she held on tight enough, if she longed hard enough, maybe she could bring Delphine home by sheer force of will. 

Eyes squeezed shut but she had run out of tears long ago. With a reverberating pang in her heart and a gritty tightness in her throat, Cosima clutched the frame to her chest. Physically unable to hold herself up any longer, she fell back against the wall and slid to the ground.

**Author's Note:**

> Again, reviews and such are welcomed!


End file.
